Notes from England - Language & Grammar

Hey folks,

I'm currently reading a new book, and it hits close to home. Continuing in my "Bill Bryson Theme" after reading Notes from a Big Country, (fab gift from Amy & Stu) I've now delved into Made in America. This book focuses on the American English language, and not only how it differs from that of "The Mother Country", but more importantly, how it became different.

We all know that yanks and limies sound completely different from each other with enough nuances and intricate differences in their vocabulary to fill a dictionary. In fact, I have one here on my desk - The American-English/English-American pocket dictionary(incidentally, also a fab gift from Amy & Stu).

But what makes the whole thing all the more interesting is figuring out where those nuances and funny details started. I wanted to share something enlightening with you all...especially my American readers, and most especially anyone who has a soft-spot in their heart for the southern-American drawl. (rednecks)

And I quote:

"Contemporary writings, particularly by the indifferently educated, offer good clues as to pronunciation. Paul Revere wrote 'git' (for get), 'imeaditly' and 'prittie' and referred to blankets as being 'woren out'. Elsewhere we can find 'libity' for liberty, 'patchis' for purchase, 'ort' for ought, 'weamin' for women, 'through' for throw, 'nater' for nature, 'keer' for care, 'jest' for just; 'ole' for old, 'pizen' for poison, 'darter' (or even 'dafter') for daughter. 'Chaw' for chew, 'varmint' for vermin, 'stomp' for stamp, 'heist' for hoist, 'rile' for roil, 'hoss' for horse, and 'tetchy' for touchy were commonly, if not invariably, heard among educated speakers on both sides of the Atlantic. All of this suggests that if we wished to find a modern-day model for British and American speech of the late eighteenth century, we could probably do no better than Yosemite Sam. (Jer says - or perhaps Cletus?)

To this day it remains a commonplace in England that American English is a corrupted form of British speech, that the inhabitants of the New World display a kind of helpless, chronic 'want of refinement' (in the words of Frances Trollope) every time they open their mouths and attempt to issue sounds. In fact, in several significant ways it is British speech that has become corrupted - or, to put it in less reactionary terms, has quietly evolved. The tendency to pronounce fertile, mobile and other such words as if spelled 'fertle' and 'moble', to give a ŭ sound to hover, grovel and Coventry rather than the rounded o of hot, to pronounce schedule with an initial sk- rather than a sh-, all reflect British speech patterns up to the close of the eighteenth century. Even the feature that Americans most closely associate with modern British speech, the practice of saying 'bahth', 'cahn't', and 'banahna' for bath, can't and banana, appears to have been unknown among educated British speakers at the time of the American Revolution. Pronunciation guides until as late as 1809 give no hint of the existence of such a pronunciation in British speech, although there is some evidence to suggest that it was used by London's cockneys (which would make it one of the few instances in modern linguistics in which a manner of utterance travelled upward from the lower classes). Not only did English speakers of the day, Britons and Americans alike, say bath and path with a flat a, but even apparently such words as jaunt , hardly, palm and father. Two incidental relics of this old pattern of ponunciation are the general American pronunciation of aunt (i.e., 'ant') and sassy, which is simply how people once said saucy.”

~Bill Bryson – Made in America

So there you have it, all my redneck friends out there...Dad, I'm looking at you...you really sound much more eloquent than everyone has long given you credit for! And I think it's amazing.

~Jer